I: Asahi
by CrypticWendigo
Summary: Amidst a conflict of cosmic scale, Naruto must find his place and decide what is more important; the destiny he was raised to believe, or the connections he forges along the road he walks.


AN: This is my...third attempt (I think) at writing and finishing this story. I grew displeased with the first attempt after the Naruto canon evolved to be much more complex (and weird) than it once was, and my second attempt was halted by a series of unpleasant issues in my personal life. Now that I've moved from California to New Hampshire, I've got a whole different set of issues, but also a reinvigorated desire to finish this project; both the fic itself, and the companion play-by-post RP set in the same AU. The first and second attempts were posted under the name FuMaouChu, but I've long since forgotten the email and password I used for the account, so if you come across the fic "Rising Sun" with this identical (or nearly identical) prologue chapter, don't worry, nobody's stolen anything.

With that out of the way, I'd like to thank anyone who gives my fic a try. I'll try and keep my opening notes short and simple in the future. Enjoy!

* * *

 **Prologue: Unexpected Interruptions**

* * *

Minato faced the intruder with his chest full of fury. Who was this masked man, this intruder, daring to threaten his child, his family, on this day of all days.

"Yondaime Hokage…Minato. Back away from the Jinchūriki, or your son dies at the ripe old age of one minute."

Minato stood firm, unsure what he should do. His newborn son's life was in the balance…but so was his wife's. 'How did he break through the barrier…who the hell is this guy?' His foot shifted forward, as he prepared to spring into action and save the day like the heroic man that he was when Kushina cried out, and for an instant, foul chakra spiked into the room. He spun, "Kushina! The seal's not done!"

The man's hand twitched, and a kunai appeared, his voice was still level, almost toneless, "Back away from the Jinchūriki…or don't you care if your son dies?" Minato could hear the man's smirk, and wanted nothing more than to rip that mask off his face and beat him to death with it. Instead he grit his teeth and put his hand up to placate the man, "Hold it, j-just calm down!" Again, Kushina convulsed, and again, the Kyūbi's foul chakra spiked.

"You should take your own advice, Minato. I'm perfectly calm." And with that same toneless, smirking voice he tossed the newborn into the air.

Through her own agony, the pain of recent childbirth and the strain of suppressing the Kyūbi, Kushina cried out her son's name, and the masked man positioned himself to impale the newborn on his blade…

Only for Minato to snatch the child out of the air, "You live up to the 'Yellow Flash' moniker, but what now?" His smirking voice was smugger than ever as Minato looked down to notice that the man had activated explosive tags that had been placed on the baby's blanket.

In an instant, Minato pulled his son out of the blanket…just as the tags detonated.

"Minato! Naruto!"

The small building was demolished as Minato hit the ground, cradling his son and absorbing the impact with his body. "Thank god…you're not hurt." He winced as he pulled a large splinter out of his leg, 'He's after Kushina…He forced me to use my _Hirashin no Jutsu_ to separate us…gotta hurry!'

* * *

Minato appeared farther from Kushina than he expected. Which shouldn't have been possible, his Hirashin seal should have deposited him at her side, and only at her side. He did not expect this. And he definitely didn't expect to see his masked assailant being kicked away from a chained Kushina by a bandaged man dressed in black.

The bandaged man looked towards Minato, his single visible eye half-lidded, "I'll be with you in a moment." The masked man had landed some distance away, and clutched at his stomach in obvious pain. He grunted and rolled to his feet before attempting to leap away, only for a spidery array of seals to cover his body, spreading from the spot him his stomach that the bandaged man had kicked. The masked man collapsed to the ground once more, the air twisting and folding and cracking around him, before snapping back into place with an audible pop, that clearly caused the masked man some measure of pain, if his ragged breathing was any indication.

The bandaged man approached his opponent and knelt next to him. "You lost, pawn. Why don't you go away for a bit?" The bandaged man's visible eye flashed blue, and the seals on the masked man began to glow white, twisting and turning and spiralling up into the single eye-hole of the downed shinobi's mask. The air began to twist and crack, and in a few short moments, the masked man was gone, leaving only a ripple in the air and the smell of blood. "That's a good boy."

Rolling his shoulders, the bandaged man turned to face Minato; he stood in silence, expectantly.

Despite the relief he felt at the masked man being dispatched, or at least removed from the situation, Minato could not let himself relax, not with this new and unknown individual having displayed obvious strength and unknown skills. "Who are you?" His voice was level, but he couldn't help but let some of his strain show.

The man sighed and looked over his shoulder at the half-conscious Kushina. "A disappointed third party."

"What do you mean?"

"Here I was expecting some kind of challenge. A proper Uzumaki Jinchūriki, and from that particular lineage. But I find only a half-dead bitch, a fool, and a pawn." The man turned towards Kushina and stretched out his arm, sealing formulae appearing on it, the obvious focal point of the array being the man's palm. As with the seals placed upon the masked man, these flashed white, and the man's arm became transparent and ethereal. "Unless the fool wants to go the way of the pawn, he will not interfere."

Minato burst into action, appearing before the bandaged man, a Rasengan driving into the man's stomach even as his blade darted for his throat. "Stay away from my wife!"

The man was driven back, his arm returning to normal. His eye narrowed, "Think carefully about this, lest you die an empty death."

"There's nothing to think about."

"Come then."

Minato blurred forward, driven by nothing but his own physical power. The man shifted, and Minato poured chakra into his legs, vanishing entirely as he shunshined behind the man and drove another Rasengan into him. The man twisted, his hand clasping Minato's wrist without turning his body, and held him with a grip like iron. The bandaged man hummed thoughtfully. "You're fast, I'm impressed."

Kushina cried out, and a wave of foul chakra crashed down upon Minato and his opponent. Minato was almost driven to his knees, his mouth suddenly dry and his muscles as weak as a child's. The man's grip loosened, for a moment, and Minato was able to jerk away. The already weakened seal was unraveling; at this rate even Kushina's impressive willpower and unique chakra wouldn't be able to contain the Kyūbi.

Minato couldn't help but feel a sliver of respect for the man as well, "Your reflexes are good."

Behind his bandages, Minato could see the man smile, "You have some potential, I'm inclined to let you live. Perhaps you'll reconsider this foolish course of action?"

The Yondaime simply narrowed his eyes and drew another kunai.

"A pity." The man's hand extended, and Minato, in a moment of clarity, saw his error.

The bandaged man used fuinjutsu to defeat the masked one.

The bandaged man had grabbed his wrist.

So when the spidery black lines burst from just below Minato's glove and rapidly extended to cover his entire body, he was not entirely surprised. Then, as if a great weight had been dropped upon his shoulders, Minato fell to the ground, gasping for breath as the weight of his own skin seemed to crush him.

As the world went black, a bandaged foot clad in a simple straw sandal crunched into the ground near Minato's face. A bandaged hand grasped his face and rolled Minato to his back. The man's single eye locked with his, the pale pupil faded inside a snow white iris.

The bandaged hand fell...

"Die pitifully, Namikaze Minato, Yondaime Hokage of Konohagakure no Sato, Kiiroi Senkou. Know that you were not fast enough to prevent this. In no world are you fast enough to prevent this."

Namikaze Minato died there, without ceremony or fanfare, with only his wife and killer to mark his passing.

* * *

Uzumaki Kushina watched with blank eyes as the man that killed her husband vanished in a blur of whiteness.

Then the life rushed back into her eyes as the cold, trembling spark of disbelief exploded into a raging conflagration of fury. A shriek tore itself from her throat and her limbs found newfound strength as she strained against the thick chains that bound her to the pillars of stone.

She screamed and struggled until her throat was raw and her wrists were bloody and her muscles screamed in protest. With a final cry, she slumped in her chains, defeated.

She was a Jinchūriki with a failing seal, weakened from childbirth. She was not without options.

"Fox."

 _ **My release is at hand, your spirit is broken, everything I've ever wanted is about to become reality. You choose now to speak to me?**_

"Do me a favor."

 _ **Oh, this is rich. Whatever can I do for you, oh great and mighty jailer?**_

"Wait. Just for a bit. That fucker will be back, yeah? Wait until he is, and I'll break the seal myself. I just need you to do one thing for me."

 _ **And what's that?**_

"Before you do anything else, kill him."

The Kyūbi laughed, and smiled broadly.

 _ **I suppose I can manage that, on account of our close relationship.**_

"Thank you." A faint smile appeared on her lips as the building pressure behind the seal receded. Her smile died as the bandaged man reappeared, a screaming bundle in his arms. Her voice was small, weak, and above all else, terrified, "Naruto."

 _ **A bargain struck, woman. Pity, you had hoped to spare your little morsel. I'll be sure to chew slowly.**_

The pressure inside her soul began to build once more, and she fought it down, unwilling to allow the demon to be free and endanger her son. Her husband was dead, the beast she contained was struggling to escape to exact bloody vengeance on the humans that had imprisoned it, and her newborn son was in the hands of an unknown killer. This wouldn't go as horribly as it could, somehow, she was sure of it.

The man sighed as he looked at Naruto's crying face, "You know, I was going to let them live. Your husband and the child." He looked at her with his pale eye, "You would die from the process, but they would have lived some few short years more. But I have dealt with...frustrations. Frustration on top of frustration. I'm sure you can imagine, I feel somewhat vindictive now."

The man extended his right arm and the spidery symbols of his fuinjutsu spread to cover it. As before the seals flashed white, and his arm took on an ethereal quality. He approached her, her squirming child held securely in the crook of his left arm.

That pale eye locked on hers, and she saw the shadow of a smile behind the bandages that wrapped his face.

"Don't fight it."

Then there was pain.

Her veins were full of molten steel, her nerves replaced by lightning and fire, and above it all, a sickening, twisting feeling tugging at the core of her existence. The man's arm was buried up to the elbow in her stomach, into her seal.

In her soul.

In her mind's eye, she could see it, tendrils of white chakra grabbing at the Kyūbi, pulling her chains off of it, binding it in light.

He was attempting to drag the Kyūbi out of her.

She refused. The Kyūbi refused. For the first time in her life, the fox agreed with her on something. So they pulled against the man's power, with all their might.

For naught.

With a mighty heave, the man wrenched his arm out of Kushina's stomach, a strand of crimson chakra clutched in his hand. Kushina watched in horror as the man pressed the chakra to Naruto's face, the seemingly endless flow of demonic chakra flowing from her stomach into the mouth and eyes of her child.

It was over in an instant, and the only evidence of the sealing was a white symbol reminiscent of an eye in the center of the infant's forehead that slowly disappeared, leaving only a pale white line.

The bandaged man looked at the child's face, and could not help but smile as he spoke to Kushina, "Perhaps this will be better. More interesting. Perhaps he will even give me a challenge. Not that you'll be alive to see it." The bandaged man gave Kushina a mocking bow, and vanished in a blur of whiteness once more.

Kushina hung there, chained to the stones, drained and broken as her consciousness slipped away from her. As the blackness came, she wondered what would become of her son, and allowed herself the small consolation that she would see Minato on the other side.

* * *

AN: Welp, that's all for the prologue. An interruption of an interruption, a mysterious villain covered in bandages with a penchant for fuinjutsu, the death of a Hokage, and the theft of a Bijū.

Ripples upon ripples, this isn't the first difference in a world diverged from canon, and it's only gonna get stranger from here.

Thanks for reading, see ya next chapter!

-Maou


End file.
